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How to Establish Your Community’s Pool Rules

A community pool is a great perk for any neighborhood, and it may attract many potential residents. However, a pool without rules is a serious danger. When establishing your community’s pool rules, use these five guidelines to help you.

Identify the Age Limit

You don’t want toddlers running around your pool without parental supervision, so you’ll need to determine various age limits. Even if you choose to hire a lifeguard, it’s best to prohibit young children from entering the pool area without a parent or adult. However, you’ll also need to determine how old the escort needs to be. Will you allow 15-year-olds to monitor 7-year-olds, or do they have to be 18 or older?

Determine How Guests Are Handled

The pool is primarily for residents of the community, but what if residents want to bring guests into the pool? When planning your pool rules, you must first determine if guests are allowed. You’ll also want to determine if the guest must be accompanied by a resident, and if the guest must check in. Last, it’s important to tell residents how many guests they can bring into the pool area at one time.

Figure Out the Appropriate Capacity

Identifying the capacity is important for two reasons. First, if you allow too many people into the pool area at once, it could be dangerous, increasing the risk of injury. Second, too many people at the pool just isn’t fun. If there’s no room to sit or swim, no one has a good time.

Limit Activities

This is the big one. You have to figure out what activities are not allowed in the pool area, such as running, diving, jumping, etc. However, this goes beyond general pool safety. Are you going to allow people to bring food/drinks into the area? If so, what about glass bottles, which could break and cause serious injury? When it doubt, it’s best to prohibit most activities and just stick to swimming.

Determine the Pool Hours

You don’t want residents getting into the pool in the middle of the night, so you need to set pool hours. Many HOA pools are only open during daylight hours. Just make sure there is a secure fence and gate around the pool to prevent entry during off-hours. In addition to figuring out the daily hours, determine if the pool is open all year round or just during the summer. If it is open all year round, make sure to change the daily hours to fit with the shorter days.

Whatever rules you choose, make sure to stay constant and always enforce them. If someone is breaking the rules, they should be asked to leave the pool area. Failure to actually enforce the rules or constantly changing them will only confuse residents.